During commercial meat production in an animal processing facility, a carcass is typically subjected to a number of different procedures. An animal is first stunned and bled and the hide is removed from the resulting carcass. Throughout this specification, the term “carcass” will be used to refer to the animal body or portion of an animal body after the animal is stunned and bled. Electrical stimulation may be used to facilitate bleeding. The carcass is then prewashed and may be subjected to an electrical stimulation process. The full animal carcass is typically split into sides (i.e., two approximately equal halves) depending on its species, size, and the intended purpose for the carcass. The carcass is subjected to steam pasteurization, typically after being split. The carcass is then inspected, weighed and washed. These processes typically take place in an area of the animal processing facility called the kill floor 2 (see FIG. 1). After these processes have taken place, the carcass is sent to a cooler 4 to be chilled, sorted, and stored until being sent to the fabrication area 6 for further processing. The carcass may be subjected to additional electrical stimulation before being sent to the cooler.
As shown in FIG. 2, during the processing of a carcass 8, the carcass is attached to a trolley 10, gambrel or shackle (hereinafter referred to as a “trolley”) at an early point along the meat processing line. Typically, the rail 16 runs from the kill floor 2 through the cooler 4 to the fabrication area 6. The carcass 8, which is attached to the trolley 10, may thus be moved along the rail 16 to different areas within the animal processing facility.
As shown in FIG. 1, the cooler 4 typically includes an entry 25, a regrade/test area 30, a storage area 35, a staging area 40, and an exit 45. Carcasses travel on a feed rail 50 from the kill floor 2 through the entry 25 and into the regrade/test area 30 of the cooler 4. In the regrade/test area 30, the feed rail 50 branches into parallel rails, a rail 55 for testing for the presence of antimicrobials such as E-coli, another rail 60 serving as a regrade rail, and the third rail serving as a continuation of the feed rail 50. The E-coli test rail 55 and the regrade rail 60 rejoin the feed rail 50 before leaving the regrade/test area 30. Multiple rails have been used for these purposes.
Carcasses exit the regrade/test area 30 and enter the storage area 35 via the feed rail 50. The feed rail 50 branches off into numerous parallel storage rails 65 once the feed rail 50 reaches the storage area 35 (see FIG. 1). The parallel storage rails 65 allow the carcasses to be sorted according to various criteria such as, for example, weight, rib eye area, projected meat yield, grade, marbling score, and projected subprimal weight. For example, all 800 pound carcasses could be sorted onto the first storage rail 65 while all 900 and 1000 pound carcasses could be sorted onto the second and third storage rails 65, respectively. Carcasses leave their respective storage rails 65 in a first in, first out (FIFO) basis.
While parallel storage rails 65 allow sorting of carcasses according to various criteria, they present two drawbacks. First, using parallel storage rails may 65 result in an inflexible system because each carcass on the storage rail 65 may only exit the storage rail 65 according to a FIFO basis. Thus, selection for processing of specific individual carcasses off of a storage rail 65 is difficult.
Second, use of parallel storage rails 65 may result in inefficient utilization of the storage area 35. For example, the storage area 35 may have five storage rails 65, each storage rail 65 being dedicated to one of classes A through E (these classes are used for example only and are not intended to represent any true class) and each storage rail 65 having a storage capacity of 100 carcasses. During a typical processing period, 20 class A carcasses may be waiting to enter the storage area 35. However, the storage area 35 may already contain 100 class A carcasses, 55 class B carcasses, 20 class C carcasses, 85 class D carcasses and 40 class E carcasses. Thus, although the storage space of the storage area 35 is only 60 percent utilized, the 20 class A carcasses cannot enter the storage area 35 because the class A carcass storage rail 65 is already at capacity.